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Springs resident takes going green to another level

Noel Ramos has a simple explanation for embracing green living with a passion that few others in South Florida can match.

“My goal is to live my life using the fewest possible resources and to help restore our battered planet,” Ramos says. “We have not been good caretakers of our fragile planet and I hope that we turn this around before it is too late.”

Ramos has 20 fruit trees in his backyard, including two that are native to the Amazon River basin, and the garden that he maintains produces vegetables like tomatoes, eggplants, spinach, lettuce, and pepper. He recycles everything he can, has energy efficient appliances in his house, rides his bike as much as possible to avoid using his car, and hypermiles when he has to drive.

“I’ve been like this since the early Eighties,” Ramos said. “You learn new things as you go along. I plan to double the size of my garden next year; I am also getting ready to hook up a rain barrel so that I can collect rain water for use on my fruits and vegetables.”

The fruits that grow on Ramos’ property are rollinia, abiu, caimito, cacao, coffee, black sapote, mamey sapote, sapodilla, dragon fruit, coconut, imbu, jackfruit, 3 different kinds of mangoes, papaya, hog plum and cocoplum. “Rollnia and Abiu are native to the Amazon River basin, but they grow well here,” the Coral Springs resident said. “There are about 100 different varieties of fruits that you can grow in the tri country area.”